Discussions on the consequences of vehicle end-of-life offshore to Africa need to move beyond the traditional focus on major OECD vehicle exporters and four-wheelers. China’s rising role in global second-hand vehicle exports, along with the shift toward—and increasing electrification of—two- and three-wheelers, is reshaping the externalisation of vehicle end-of-life burden to Africa. 

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, second-hand vehicles comprise 60 percent of vehicles registered annually in Africa. These vehicles serve real needs, supporting mobility and generating livelihoods for millions of people, including mechanics, sprayers, and other garage operators.

However, the vehicles are not without concerns. First, they run mainly on fossil fuels and tend to be over-aged, highly polluting, and prone to malfunction and crashes, contributing to public and environmental health problems, including traumatic injuries, respiratory, and cardiovascular diseases. Second, low-skilled informal waste workers disproportionately bear end-of-life management responsibilities, usually with limited or no protective equipment. This exposes the workers to various personal and occupational health and safety problems, leading to chronic and infectious diseases.

Also, considerable amounts of used vehicle exports to Africa end up at landfill sites due to inadequate capacity for managing waste. These inappropriate waste management practices often impose water, soil, food, air, and other forms of pollution on nearby disadvantaged populations and communities.

Risk of escalation

Today, concerns are growing that as rich countries mandate electric vehicles (EVs) to combat the colliding crises of climate change and air pollution, more unwanted, obsolete, unsafe, dirty, and faulty second-hand internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) will become available for export to Africa and other lower- and middle-income economies. Yet, when it comes to climate change and public health, out of sight should not become out of mind. Simply transferring such vehicles elsewhere undermines global and local goals to move toward safe and low-carbon transport. It requires better governance of used vehicle exports.

The current calls for change in academic, international development, and media circles heavily focus on vehicle transfers–particularly four-wheelers–from the traditional major global used vehicle exporters, comprising Europe, Japan, the US, and South Korea. For instance, Japan, the EU, and the US featured prominently in UNEP’s 2020 landmark study that shed a global light on the need for improved governance of used vehicle exports to Africa and other developing economies. Similarly, the BBC, CNN,  and Deutsche Welle’s recent reports on the danger of Africa becoming dumping grounds for rich countries rapidly replacing their ICEVs centered the US, UK, EU, Japan, and South Korea in their concerns.

The US, EU, Japan, and the UK collectively supply 90 percent of used vehicles to (non-EU) lower- and middle-income countries, with Africa being the destination for 40 percent of used light-duty vehicles exported. As these rich economies electrify their transport systems, an even greater number of their unwanted ICEVs will land in Africa.

However, new trends are emerging in the vehicle import trade globally and in Africa. China’s rapid ascent in global second-hand vehicle exports and Africa’s rising interest in motorcycle electrification and imports from China and India raise a need for decentring the traditional major global used vehicle exporters and four-wheelers in the discourses on vehicle transfer to Africa. This is necessary for a better understanding of the full scale, changing geographies, multiple trajectories, and directionality of the vehicle end-of-life socio-environmental burdens that Africa faces in the context of the global low-carbon transport transition.

Emerging trends

China, a hitherto unknown actor two decades ago, is now a global automotive power. It is rapidly expanding its second-hand vehicle market since the government lifted an export ban in 2019. Four African countries–Angola, Benin, Djibouti, and Nigeria–are ranked in the top five destinations for China’s used vehicle exports in 2021. In 2023, researchers at OECD’s International Transport Forum projected that China’s used vehicle exports to emerging economies may overtake those of all OECD countries combined in the next ten years. Their analysis further suggests that by 2050, 15-20 percent of vehicles in Africa may have first been used in China. This shift necessitates a reexamination of the prevailing focus on major historical exporters and calls for renewed scrutiny of the environmental and regulatory implications of China’s burgeoning influence.

Simultaneously, Africa is experiencing a marked shift in its vehicular composition, with two- and three-wheelers increasingly supplanting four-wheelers as the predominant mode of transport. In several African countries, motorcycles dominate their vehicle fleet: 85 percent in Burkina Faso, 70 percent in Uganda, and 53 percent in Rwanda. Africa currently accounts for approximately 20 percent of the world’s registered motorcycles, compared to a mere two percent share of the global car fleet. This transition is driven by the affordability, maneuverability, and utility of motorcycles in densely populated urban centers and informal transport sectors. Importantly, over 90 percent of these motorcycles are imported from China and India.

Amid growing concerns about transport-related emissions, the electrification of Africa’s expanding two- and three-wheeler fleet is increasingly promoted as a pathway to sustainable mobility. Initiatives, such as those led by the UNEP, underscore the potential of electric motorcycles to mitigate urban air pollution and enhance social equity in mobility. However, the shift toward electric two-wheelers introduces distinct challenges related to battery life and end-of-life management.

Empirical evidence suggests that the motorcycles exported to Africa by Chinese and Indian manufacturers are often ill-adapted to local conditions, with design specifications that fail to accommodate the intensively used and frequently overloaded commercial operations on harsh road terrains. Consequently, the actual lifespan of these vehicles—and particularly their batteries—may be significantly reduced relative to manufacturers’ advertised timelines.

The absence of robust infrastructure and specialised technical capacity for battery health management further exacerbates the potential for premature degradation of electric motorcycles and their battery components. As their imports grow, so will their toxic battery and other component waste, which can pose substantial socio-environmental risks. These risks are compounded by the nascent state of recycling and safe disposal facilities in many African countries, raising urgent questions about the long-term sustainability of current electrification strategies in the transport sector.

Festival Godwin Boateng is a Senior Research Associate in Mobility Governance at the Transport Studies Unit of the University of Oxford. Gaurav Mittal is a Researcher in Mobility Governance at the Transport Studies Unit of the University of Oxford.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.